On this day in movie history - The Unholy Three (1925 movie & novel):

The Unholy Three

directed by Tod Browning,

written by Tod Robbins, Waldemar Young,

based on the novel by Tod Robbins,

released in the United States on July 4, 1925.

Cast: Lon Chaney, Mae Busch, Matt Moore, Victor McLaglen, Harry Earles, Matthew Betz, Edward Connelly, William Humphrey, E. Alyn Warren, Margie Angus, Mary Angus, Violet N. Cane, Walter P. Cole, D'Arcy Corrigan, Carrie Daumery, Delno Fritz, Alice Julian, Peter Kortes, Mickey McBan, John Merkyl, John Millerta, Louis Morrison, Marjorie Morton, Walter Perry, Louis Shank, Vera Vance, Carrie Clark Ward, Charles Wellesley, Percy Williams.

Recommended reading:

The Unholy Three

By Tod Robbins.

Published by A.L. Burt Company,

First published 1917.

ASIN: B0DM4DFX7Y

Description:

Step right up, folks, and prepare to have your blood run cold as you meet the strangest, most bizarre trio of misfits ever spawned by a carnival of TWEEDLEDEE, an adult man trapped in the body of a three-year-old toddler, whose mask of childlike innocence hides a seething brain plotting hideous revenge against all that is sane and normal! HERCULES, the circus strongman, brutal, bestial, reveling in carnage and murder – yet the submissive slave of a deadly dwarf! ECHO, the expert ventriloquist with the uncanny ability to throw his voice so that lifeless wooden dummies seem to speak even as you or I! Together, they are THE UNHOLY THREE, star attractions of Tod Robbins’ classic novel of hate, murder and madness on and off the midway. Best known as author of the story which inspired the still-controversial fear-film FREAKS, Robbins first stunned the public with this intense account of a ruthless war on society waged by a triad of carny castaways.

Born on this day – Tod Robbins:

Tod Robbins

Writer

June 25, 1888 – May 10, 1949

Credits:

Books:

Close Their Eyes Tenderly (1949); Creeps (1932); Famous Fantastic Mysteries (1991); Freaks and Fantasies (2007); Hallowe'en Hauntings: Stories About the Most Ghostly Night of the Year (1984); In the Shadow (1929); Nightmares (1933); Red of Surley (1919); Shivers (1933); Shudders (1932); Silent, White and Beautiful and Other Stories (1920); The Best American Noir of the Century (2010); The Freak Show: Tales of Fantasy and Horror (1970); The Ghouls (1971); The Master of Murder (1933); The Original Sin (unpublished); The People of the Pit (2010); The Scales of Justice and Other Poems (1915); The Spirit of the Town (1912); The Unholy Three / aka The Three Freaks (1917 / 1935); Thrills (1935); To Hell and Home Again (unpublished); Who Wants a Green Bottle? and Other Uneasy Tales (1926).

Movies and television:

Cineficción Radio (2019–2021); Freaks (1932); Hoop Dreams (1994); Scary Stories Around the Fire (2023); Screen Two (1986); The Branded Man (1928); The Museum of Wonders (2010); The Unholy Three (1925 / 1930).